FREDDIE HUBBARD — Red Clay (1970-2010) RM | Serie CTI 40th Anniversary | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

This may be Freddie Hubbard's finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman. On Red Clay, Hubbard combines hard bop's glorious blues-out past with the soulful innovations of mainstream jazz in the 1960s, and reads them through the chunky groove innovations of '70s jazz fusion. This session places the trumpeter in the company of giants such as tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Lenny White. Hubbard's five compositions all come from deep inside blues territory; these shaded notions are grafted onto funky hard bop melodies worthy of Horace Silver's finest tunes, and are layered inside the smoothed-over cadences of shimmering, steaming soul. The 12-minute-plus title track features a 4/4 modal opening and a spare electric piano solo woven through the twin horns of Hubbard and Henderson. It is a fine example of snaky groove music. Henderson even takes his solo outside a bit without ever moving out of the rhythmatist's pocket. "Delphia" begins as a ballad with slow, clipped trumpet lines against a major-key background, and opens onto a midtempo groover, then winds back into the dark, steamy heart of bluesy melodicism. The hands-down favorite here, though, is "The Intrepid Fox," with its Miles-like opening of knotty changes and shifting modes, that are all rooted in bop's muscular architecture. It's White and Hancock who shift the track from underneath with large sevenths and triple-timed drums that land deeply inside the clamoring, ever-present riff. Where Hubbard and Henderson are playing against, as well as with one another, the rhythm section, lifted buoyantly by Carter's bridge-building bassline, carries the melody over until Hancock plays an uncharacteristically angular solo before splitting the groove in two and doubling back with a series of striking arpeggios. This is a classic, hands down.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1 Red Clay 12:09
2 Delphia 7:21
3 Suite Sioux 8:37
4 The Intrepid Fox 10:42
Bonus Tracks
5 Cold Turkey 10:25
6 Red Clay (Alternate Version) 18:44
Drums [Uncredited] – Billy Cobham
Guitar [Uncredited] – George Benson
Organ, Electric Piano [Uncredited] – Johnny Hammond
Percussion [Uncredited] – Airto Moreira
Tenor Saxophone [Uncredited] – Stanley Turrentine
Credits
Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Lenny White (tracks: 1 to 5)
Piano – Herbie Hancock (tracks: 1 to 5)
Producer – Creed Taylor
Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder
Saxophone – Joe Henderson (tracks: 1 to 5)
Trumpet – Freddie Hubbard